Setting the Tone: How Tone Impacts Messaging, Influence, and More…
As a species, we human beings are becoming increasingly immune to ads that we see in our daily lives. This is not due to lack of brand creativity but instead to the sheer amount of ads people are exposed to daily. Sam Anderson, Editor at The Drum, did research on the topic himself after googling ‘how many ads the average person sees in a day’ and got varying answers all “clustered around three figures: 3,000, 5,000 and 10,000.”
Despite what the true answer is, those are astronomical numbers to represent ad exposure.
Therefore, humans have improved their ability to essentially ‘turn off’ their brain’s automatic desire to digest each ad, similar to dissociation.
Despite these tactics, we are seeing them. Even when the ads are not fully registering – impacting your thoughts and behaviors – our brains are still unconsciously interpreting them.
What makes one ad stand out from the next?
This is a question marketers are working tirelessly to learn more about, in order to better serve their audience and optimize ad effectiveness. Although, it does not take a marketing expert to understand this concept.
Any person who interacts with people day to day – in an office, virtually, on the subway, at family dinner, or in a grocery store checkout – is constantly interpreting tone. We are always inherently digesting the tone other humans use with us, and using that specific tone to then alter or all together create the thoughts, actions, and emotions that follow.
Think about it:
Your roommate starts being passive aggressive when you put another dish on top of a pile of dirty ones. → You may interpret this as frustration for your lack of dish cleaning. It may even change your behavior and encourage you to do the dishes sooner rather than later.
Your boss tells the entire team about an available promotion. When she told your colleague, she spoke matter-of-factly, versus, when she told you she used an exuberant tone with higher voice inflections. → You may feel you have a better chance at the promotion, based on the signaling.
If people’s tone has that significant of an impact, and brands are always fighting for our attention using their unique brand voice, tone must be essential to our experiences, thoughts, habits, and buying behaviors.
Whether or not it goes unnoticed, tone impacts the way in which things resonate with people. This is why successful brands are so intentional with their tone, because they know it matters.
Apple’s Tone: Simple and confident. The brand effectively influences their audience with very few words or emotions.
Kroger’s Tone: Uplifting and energetic. Known for their Krojis (Kroger + Emoji), their ads are playful, upbeat, and positive.
Coca-Cola’s Tone: Inclusive, light-hearted, and optimistic. Every commercial emphasizes community, coming together, and the ‘more important’ things in life.
This may be the first time you’ve seen these tones explained. Despite that, you’re nodding in agreement, knowing there is a universal truth to the tone these brands have created.
There is no coincidence. Apple, Kroger, and Coca-Cola resonate similarly with extremely diverse audiences because their tone is consistent, unique to their brand, and impactful.
How a message is delivered directly impacts how it is perceived.
Therefore, it is crucial that businesses determine and own their brand voice. It is never too late to do this. Here’s a guide on how:
Hire a copywriter.
Determine what your brand stands for, what that looks like, and how you want your messaging portrayed.
Create copy and content that is relevant to your brand, maintaining a consistent tone until the audience is ‘trained’ to interpret your brand messaging in an influential way.
Again, how a message is delivered directly impacts how it is perceived.
For example, this blog post is intentionally written using a specific tone: informative, direct, and scholarly. It should sound more research-y and scientific than the two that follow it (read next).
Does that sound right? Do those descriptors match how you heard this blog in your head as you read along?
Drier, larger, and more academic words like research, unconscious, species, therefore, portrayed, and inherently give the blog a specific tone of voice that would go recognized by almost any reader.
Proceed onto the next blog post to read the exact same premise, delivered in a different tone.
1. Sam Anderson, How many ads do we really see in a day? Spoiler: it’s not 10,000, (The Drum, 2023)